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On Thursday night, President Joe Biden gave a widely panned performance in the debate against Donald Trump, causing panic throughout the Democratic Party and raising questions about whether Biden should continue on as the Partys candidate. Biden is already trailing Trump in national and swing-state polls, in which voters have registered significant concerns about the Presidents age. (He will be eighty-two in November.) At the debate, Biden stumbled over his words, at times appeared to blank out entirely, and had trouble giving clear answers, likely entrenching these concerns among voters. (A CNN poll taken immediately after the debate found that fifty-seven per cent of viewers said they had no confidence in Bidens ability to lead the country; for Trump, the number was forty-four per cent.)

More than four months ago, the Times columnist and podcaster Ezra Klein wrote a column titled Democrats Have a Better Option than Biden, in which he called on the Party to convince Biden that he should not run again. He worried that Biden was on a losing path, felt that it was imperative for Democrats not give in to fatalism about the race, and argued that the Party should push for an open convention in which another candidate could be chosen. The column caused a splash, but obviously did not lead to Biden being significantly challenged in the primaries, or to a major push for him to step aside.

On Friday morning, I spoke by phone with Klein about what happened on Thursday, and what Democrats should do now. Our conversation, edited for length and clarity, is below.

Why do you think what you suggested should happen in February didnt happen?

I think it is very hard to get around an incumbent President who wants to run for relection. I dont think anything that I argued in February was particularly unusual or not felt by many Democrats, including many top Democrats. I got a lot of feedback on that piece, and the feedback I almost never got was, Youre wrong. Joe Biden is a strong candidate. Hes the best candidate the Democrats could put on the ballot in November.

What people said was, There isnt another option. There isnt another option because he wont stand aside. There isnt another option because, even if he did stand aside, Kamala Harris isnt strong enough. There isnt another option because you dont think Kamala Harris would win in a convention, and if she didnt win in a convention it would tear the Party apart. To me, the blockage in peoples minds was not so much whether Bidens age had become a really substantial risk on the campaign trail or even within the Presidency but in imagining that the Party was strong enough to do something else and take on the risk of doing something else.

There was a collective-action problem. Any individual politician or Joe Biden staffer or adviser or confidant who stepped out of line and said privately or publicly that Joe Biden shouldnt run faced real career risk. Whereas saying nothing did not pose a risk.

Challenging an incumbent President is generally seen as both hard for the challenger and potentially damaging for the incumbent. One thing that does occur to me, though, which I wish Id thought of at the time of your column, is that when the incumbents main issue is his or her age, theres an added benefit to challenging them: something like this debate could have happened during the primaries, which I really think wouldve shaken things up.

I had planned that exact piece out with my editor, and I was going to run it right after the midterms. Then the Democrats did so unexpectedly well in the midterms that you could feel the possibility of a challenge drain out of the Party. My understanding was that people were at least considering entering a primary for this exact reason, and might have been amenable to the argument that Democrats needed a primary simply to see if Joe Biden was still capable as a campaigner. There was no chance of it after the Democratic performance in 2022, which was called uponincorrectly, I thinkas proof that I was wrong not just about Democrats but about Joe Biden.

Something were seeing this year is Biden trailing congressional Democrats. Theyre leading in the key Senate races, in states where he is running behind. So its clear now that people are more willing to vote for your median Democrat than for Joe Biden, and its very plausible in my view that the delta on that is age.

The problem was, again, the Party. I want to keep coming back to this: the Party wouldve needed to make a more strategic decision. The Party wouldve needed to do things that were uncomfortable to manage downside risk. Instead, there was a cohering around the best possible case for Joe Biden. Sometimes people say that I walked my piece back after the State of the Union, but thats not how I think about it. What I said after the State of the Union was, essentially, If this Joe Biden shows up every day until the election, people saying what Ive been saying are going to look a little silly. But he was not going to show up that way every day between now and the election.

I dont really know why his State of Union was so strong. But the hope that you were going to get that guy every day when anybody who watched his speeches and his performances regularly knew you were not getting that guy every day is a problem.

Even if you didnt watch his speeches or performances, hes eighty-one years old, and youre probably not getting that performance every day simply because hes eighty-one.

I think this is something that Democrats have been treating as a superficial issue as opposed to a substantive issue.

Right, one of the most interesting things you talked about in your piece and have talked about since is this idea of whether Biden is too old to run for President versus too old to be President. How do you think about that now?

The point I made in the piece, which is something I heard from a lot of people around Joe Biden, is that he was perfectly up to the job of the Presidency. I would be told, although Im not in these meetings, that if you were in meetings with him, youd see he was sharp, he was making good decisions, that people had no concerns about his ability to perform the role in terms of decision-making. His ability to perform the role in front of cameras was another thing. So I made this point that he did seem up to the job of the President, but that he did not seem up to the job of campaigning for President.

I thought about that line a fair amount after I published the piece because I felt the situation was a little less clear than I made it sound. The way I put it now is that I think its a blurrier distinction. I dont think Joe Biden is senile. I dont think hes making bad decisions. But I do think, first, the ability to communicate is part of the job of the President. In the classic formulation in political science, the power of the Presidency is the power to persuade. Joe Biden has become quite limited in his persuasive capacities. Part of the job of the President is to instill confidence in people that you have the manifold problems of the world under control.

The Democratic Party has become this party of normalcy and of systems and of institutions in a way thats different from when I got into politics, when business was very aligned with the Republicans. You really have this alignment in which every major institution in American life has become much closer to Democrats. So, in a way that I think is a little bit complicated for them, this party that is on the one hand the party of reform is also the party of preserving what we have. Its a party of both conservation and change.

Read more here:
Ezra Klein on Why the Democrats Are Too Afraid of Replacing Biden - The New Yorker

Rep. Jared Golden (D-Maine) said Wednesday that hes unsure what Democratic candidate could prevail over Donald Trump in November.

In his first interview since penning an op-ed in the Bangor Daily News, Golden stopped short of calling on President Biden to exit the presidential contest after his faltering debate performance. But he did predict that Biden would lose to Donald Trump in November. He added that hes unsure whether Vice President Harris could beat Trump, either.

Asked whether he believes there is a Democrat who could prevail over Trump, Golden said, I dont know who can beat Trump in this current moment.

And he panned the Biden campaigns focus on safeguarding democratic principles as a winning message against Trump, calling it a complete, abject failure.

Golden, who sits in a district Trump won by roughly seven points in 2020, predicted that Biden would lose his Republican-leaning House district in November by a margin larger than Hillary Clinton did in 2016. He warned that a major loss in his district could be a warning sign for other vulnerable Democrats who have voted with the Biden agenda more often than he has.

Goldens perspective comes as his fellow House Democratic colleagues continue to grapple with whether Biden should remain atop the Democratic ticket after a debate performance last week that has brought about more questions than reassuring answers from Bidens orbit. Only one has so far publicly called on Biden to step aside: Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Tex.).

Golden and Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-Wash.), who co-chair the centrist Blue Dog Coalition, both publicly said Tuesday that Biden would not fare well in their swing districts.

But they stopped short of calling for Biden to exit.

I recognize that Im in not in a position to make that decision for Joe Biden. He is, Golden said. What I can say is what I think is going to happen if he is the nominee.

Golden offered that perhaps another Democrat could beat Trump. But he didnt say who, and he was bearish on Harriss chances given that he hasnt heard from constituents about her and how she fares in his district.

I would love someone running for president in either party or both candidates to be fresh faces, like young with new ideas, not retreads of the past, Golden said. And thats not what weve been given by either party in Donald Trump and Joe Biden.

Goldens decision to speak out was not meant to coincide with Doggetts. Though he did not watch the debate, Golden said he knew he would have to put out a statement about Biden because its what everyone in America is thinking and talking about. He said it was notable to him that former House speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said on MSNBC on Tuesday that its a legitimate question to say, Is this an episode or is this a condition about the president.

Goldens message to his party goes beyond his warning about Biden and directly against a core argument Democrats are making. The Maine Democrat acknowledges the need to run local races but said hes concerned that Democrats may be too keen on attacking Trump as a threat to democracy. He says, rather, that Democrats should be focusing on how their constituents are feeling economically and socially.

The preferred campaign message of not just Joe Biden but a lot of Democrats that this election is about saving democracy happens to be a complete, abject failure. If youre trying to appeal to, lets say, just regular people or to, like, swing voters in swing states, its very clearly going to be about the economy, as it almost always is, he said. When you look at the last Congress, like, theres plenty of good things that we did.

Unlike most of his colleagues, Golden believes Democrats must tout the strength of American democracy even though it was tested on Jan. 6, 2021. But he says the message should be that the system held because of government leaders who were willing to do the right thing and stand up to Trump and uphold the law. He believes Trump would be surrounded by similar people during a second Trump administration.

He echoes what many House Democrats have recognized since the debate: Its imperative for them to win back the majority because they may be the only chamber that could act as a check on another Trump administration.

Golden stated, for instance, that the House could block a Republican majoritys attempts to reimpose Trumps 2017 tax law, which slashed taxes for corporations and rich Americans.

Weve got good new laws that the Congress passed that we can run on. We should be talking about those things and reminding people, Listen, when the Republicans are in control, like, you know what they do? They try and cut taxes for the rich, he said.

More:
Jared Golden unsure whether any Democrat can beat Trump in November - The Washington Post

As President Biden continues to face questions about whether he should end his bid to seek a second term, there are growing signs that many in the Democratic Party are willing to accept the notion of Vice President Harris at the top of their presidential ticket, a potentially significant shift.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) is signaling to members that Harris would be the best option to lead the ticket if Biden chooses to step aside, said two people familiar with this thinking who spoke on the condition of anonymity to detail private conversations.

Rep. James E. Clyburn (S.C.), a high-ranking member of the House and a longtime Biden friend, has publicly said he would support Harris if Biden steps aside, adding that his fellow Democrats should do everything to bolster her, whether shes in second place or at the top of the ticket.

Tim Ryan, a former Ohio congressman and presidential candidate, said in an op-ed that while he loves Biden, Harris should be the Democratic nominee for president after Biden stumbled in a high-profile debate performance last week. Some other possible contenders including Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and California Gov. Gavin Newsom probably wouldnt jump in the race this year and would support Harris if Biden were to remove himself from the ticket, according to people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations.

Democrats growing move to rally around Harris as a potential nominee almost always with the caveat that Biden remains the choice for now is a sign that they are gaming out a world without Biden as the partys standard-bearer, even as they try to blunt years of hand-wringing about Harriss ability to win the White House on her own.

That could remove one of the major obstacles Democrats have long seen to the notion of replacing Biden: the fear that it would result in a damaging political free-for-all as the partys most promising stars battle it out for the nomination.

Many Democrats were also worried that Harris would be a weak candidate, based in part on her ill-fated presidential run in 2020, when she was forced to drop out before a single vote was cast. But choosing someone instead of Harris, the first woman of color to serve as vice president, seemed politically untenable.

Now some in the party are rethinking the idea that Harris would flounder as the Democratic nominee, especially compared with Biden, given his struggles.

A CNN poll released Tuesday found that voters favor former president Donald Trump over Biden by six percentage points, 49 percent to 43 percent, similar to results from before the debate. But Harris performs better, trailing Trump 47 percent to 45 percent, a gap that falls within the margin of error.

And, some say, Harris could energize Democratic-leaning groups whose enthusiasm for Biden has faded Black voters, young people and women. Some progressives say she could win back some voters who are disenchanted with Bidens handling of the Israel-Gaza war.

Some of the shift in thinking is practical: With four months before Election Day on Nov. 5 and early voting beginning weeks before that picking anyone but Harris would represent a legal, political and financial minefield, according to interviews with more than a dozen political strategists and people close to the decisions of White House aspirants.

Choosing a new nominee outside the current ticket would raise questions about the status of the delegates whom Biden and Harris have won and the nearly quarter-billion dollars in their campaign coffers, money that cannot easily or perhaps even legally be handed to someone else.

Then there are the optics: Harris is the first Black woman to win a nationally elected office. Shunting her aside for someone White and possibly male could alienate the Black voters who the campaign says are key to winning the White House in 2024, and it could subject a party that prides itself on diversity to charges of hypocrisy.

Harris supporters also argue that many of the people often discussed as alternatives to Harris Whitmer and Newsom, along with Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, Rep. Ro Khanna (Calif.), Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and Maryland Gov. Wes Moore are popular in their home states and in Democratic circles but remain untested on the national stage.

People want the president to be successful, but its unclear where were headed, said Jamal Simmons, Harriss former communications director. And so as people begin to ponder if we had to do something else, what that something else would look like, who that someone else would be, the math leads you to Kamala Harris.

While Harris has been singed by criticism, supporters say, she is a known quantity, both from her own presidential race and from her experience as the running mate on a 2020 Democratic ticket that faced withering attacks.

I dont know that Gretchen Whitmer going into Philadelphia is going to help turnout. I think Kamala Harris does, said Mike Trujillo, a Democratic strategist and former aide to Hillary Clinton. I dont know if Gavin Newsom goes into Raleigh, North Carolina, or Charlotte, North Carolina, that hes going to be able to turn out African Americans that are the base of the party. I think Kamala Harris can do that.

Equally important, according to some strategists, is that voters say they are uninspired by the current rematch of two elderly men who have already served in the White House; Harris would present a younger face and a symbol of change. Biden is 81 and Trump is 78, while Harris is 59.

Still, there are many within the party who are not yet persuaded that Harris can win. Not only did her one presidential campaign collapse in disarray, they say, but she repeatedly stumbled early in her vice presidency.

Harris struggled, for example, when Biden asked her to tackle the root causes of illegal migration to the United States by working with leaders of Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador to improve conditions there. (Harriss defenders say the president had handed her an impossible task.)

Others worry that Harriss reputation as a California liberal, accurate or not, could alienate White centrists in the Midwestern suburbs whom Democrats need to win. Some of these skeptics include major Democratic donors, suggesting that Harris could have a harder time than Biden raising campaign cash.

At the same time, Bidens aides have forcefully insisted for months that he is Democrats best or perhaps only chance of beating Trump, an assertion that has done little to bolster party members views of Harriss prospects.

Multiple Democrats who have said they would get behind Harris, however, point to her post-debate interview when she had to balance a defense of Biden and the shaky debate performance millions of viewers saw. That was a thankless job she had to do, and she did a very, very good job, one senior House Democratic aide said.

But overall, there are signs that a growing number of Democrats can now envision a relatively smooth transition to a Harris-led ticket, especially if Biden throws his support behind her.

Beyond party leaders, rank-and-file Democrats have also begun vigorously discussing post-Biden scenarios. One Democrat in Texas, slated to be a delegate to the partys convention in August, said it would be almost impossible at this late hour for someone like Newsom or Whitmer to win the nomination, then conduct a full-blown presidential campaign from scratch.

So the choices come down to Biden and Harris, this person said and Harris would be better.

As the only other option really being Vice President Harris, I think I would prefer that and prefer the challenge of trying to drive up polling and drive up support more than to keep support when we have a president going for reelection who may not have the best physical well-being, the delegate said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter.

Amid the intensifying conversations among Democrats, there are signs that Harriss potential Democratic rivals are backing off or being encouraged to back off.

Whitmer would not run for president this year and would be all in for Harris, according to a person close to the Michigan governor. Newsom has also hinted that he would back Harris, a fellow Californian. California lawmakers say they dont believe hed run this year.

Its got to be Kamala at the top, and pairing her with someone new and dynamic and good could be super invigorating, said one California Democrat in the U.S. House.

A person close to Clyburn said the high-ranking Democrat had made his comments about Harris on MSNBC with the explicit goal of warning top Democrats against contemplating an alternate ticket not headed by Harris, should Biden step aside. Clyburn is an influential figure in the party, and other Democratic members have been sending a similar message to their colleagues who could be considering different rising stars to lead the ticket, according to a person who has been communicating this message.

Clyburn was expressing his support for the president during this extraordinary period, and reminding voters and donors alike of his steadfast support for the second name on that ticket Vice President Harris, said Marcus Mason, a member of the Democratic National Committee.

Harris has so far refused to engage in any of the public strategizing. Since the debate, she has been Bidens defender in chief, telling any camera in sight that voters should look at Bidens successful 3 years in office, not his 90 minutes of struggling in a debate.

In an interview with CBS News on Tuesday, Harris declined to answer a question about whether she is ready to lead the country if Biden is unable to, saying rather that she is proud to be Joe Bidens running mate.

Look, Joe Biden is our nominee, Harris said. We beat Trump once, and were going to beat him again. Period.

Bidens camp has said any discussion of a possible replacement is moot, since he is not pulling out. His campaign has tried to convince anxious supporters that despite a stumbling debate performance, he remains easily the best choice atop the party.

Jen OMalley Dillon, Bidens campaign chair, told donors at the Ritz-Carlton in Atlanta on Friday that nothing fundamentally changed in the race despite the furor over the debate. And the campaign has touted strong fundraising numbers in the days since.

Joe isnt just the right person for the job, first lady Jill Biden said at a Saturday fundraiser in East Hampton, N.Y. Hes the only person for the job.

Many Democrats privately say they like Harris personally and as a symbol of change, but they wonder how a politician who has at times struggled in the brightest spotlight would contend with a potentially bruising campaign, one that could feature racist and sexist dog whistles and perhaps more overt bigotry.

Harriss supporters argue that her last two years have shown more strides than missteps. She became a leading voice on abortion rights after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022, seizing on a central plank in the Democratic platform and one that Biden sometimes seems uncomfortable discussing.

Harris has traveled the country to attack Republicans for eroding Americans rights, courting conflict with some of the GOPs most vocal antiabortion voices. She has met with dozens of global leaders, including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky half a dozen times, developing a foreign policy portfolio she had earlier lacked.

Just as salient, supporters say, Harris is at the intersection of many of the principles Democrats say they stand for: diversity and inclusion, gender and racial equity. Some Democrats are coming to the conclusion that divorcing her from the ticket might speak louder than any campaign ad or messaging.

At this moment, women feel under assault on abortion, said Simmons, Harriss former communications director. People of color feel under assault on diversity and inclusion. It would be difficult to pick a ticket that does not include the first woman of color to be vice president.

More here:
Democrats begin to consider Harris at the top of their ticket - The Washington Post

As of early Wednesday morning, President Biden had called just one congressional leader personally in the wake of his faltering debate performance: Hakeem Jeffries.

That the president chose Jeffries is perhaps not surprising. The New York Democrat may be the only thing standing between Biden and a flood of panicked House Democrats few of whom have so far gone on the record demanding the president exit the race, hopefully saving their chances of regaining the slender House majority in the process.

On Wednesday evening, Jeffries led a tightly controlled conference call of House Democratic leaders as concern over Biden ricocheted on and off Capitol Hill. According to four people who either participated on the call or were briefed on it, the leader mainly listened, as some panicked participants worried about Bidens electability and said the president should step aside. Some argued, however, according to one person on the call, that it would be too messy to replace him. Jeffries acknowledged being concerned about Bidens situation but held his fire, according to one person familiar with the call.

So far, the would-be House speaker has succeeded in stemming a tide of defectors calling for Bidens exit after a debate last week in which the president noticeably stumbled at times, spoke in a thin voice, mumbled words and occasionally looked confused. It was a performance that drew immediate worries among Democrats concerned about his age and perceived fragility among voters.

There was a real effort of the leadership team to keep unity, if not unanimity, said a lawmaker on the Wednesday evening call attended by members of House Democratic elected leadership.

Jeffries asked his leadership team to keep talking with each other, their colleagues and their constituents and to stay in touch.

Amid the mounting storm, Jeffries has remained careful and steady.

As he has for every big decision, once again, Leader Jeffries is in listening mode, taking the time to hear members about the impact in their districts and carefully assessing the path forward, said Rep. Ann Kuster (D-N.H.), the head of the moderate New Democrat Coalition. Patience is a virtue. Democratic unity is top of mind for our leadership.

Jeffries has not asked lawmakers to defend the president, according to multiple members who have spoken directly with him. But he has asked them to give Biden the grace to make his own decision about whether to remain in the presidential race. Jeffries has reminded Democrats not to act irrationally, and to allow this week to play out before making any statements. He prefers hashing things out as a group when Democrats return to Washington next week.

The story of how Jeffries is handling perhaps the biggest political crisis of his House leadership hes only been in the job a little over a year and a half is based on interviews with roughly a dozen House Democratic lawmakers and over a dozen aides, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk extensively about ongoing private conversations within the caucus regarding their partys president.

The rapidly moving news has once again thrust Jeffries into the middle of a defining moment. But unlike helping Republicans fund the government, averting a debt crisis or sending critical aid to foreign allies, Jeffries is navigating uncharted and very choppy waters four months out from Election Day.

As of Wednesday afternoon, Bidens aides are insisting he wont step aside. Biden press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters that the president was absolutely not dropping out of the race.

And it seems like Jeffries, at least for now, would prefer that his members not ask Biden to.

Only two House Democrats Reps. Lloyd Doggett (Tex.) and Ral Grijalva (Ariz.) had publicly called for Bidens exit, though several others have tread a middle ground in saying Biden cant beat Trump in November.

Its a delicate position for Jeffries, who is expected to be speaker if Democrats retake the House majority caught between a Democratic president and his own fretting, angry members.

Hakeem is a big part of the Democratic unity weve shown for the past two years. So when hes ready to provide guidance on this question, I am certain that many members will be glad to receive it and will probably find it very persuasive, said Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.), who was not on Wednesday nights call.

Over the past few days, House Democrats said they felt gaslit by the White House and Biden campaigns weak reassurances that everything remains fine, and some fear the relationship between House Democrats and the president is irreparable.

Worried House Democrats are circulating draft letters that call on Biden to step aside. Democrats are informally brainstorming how to run their races without Biden at the top of the ticket in a flurry of group texts. Above all, most remain focused on their No. 1 goal: a House Democratic majority, which requires reminding voters on the campaign trail what a Democratic House was able to accomplish under a Democratic administration.

When donors ask Jeffries what to do, he directs them to channel their concerns into House races. He has tried to reassure all Democrats who have reached out to him in calls or texts that the House can serve as a backstop to a potential Republican Senate and White House, though people familiar with his thinking stress he does not mean to infer that Biden will lose the election.

Jeffries and other leaders are aware that a wave of private frustrations could soon spill into public view. Two centrist Democrats Reps. Jared Golden (D-Maine) and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-Wash.) have predicted Biden will lose to Trump. After officials insisted Biden would stay in the race, Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.), a liberal, expressed late Wednesday his grave concerns about Bidens ability to defeat Donald Trump.

Winning will require prosecuting the case in the media, in town halls, and at campaign stops all over the country. President Biden needs to demonstrate that he can do that, Moulton said. When your current strategy isnt working, its rarely the right decision to double down. President Biden is not going to get younger.

Jeffries has managed to contain the defections thus far, often reminding colleagues in numerous communications that they cannot undo something once its been said publicly.

In typical Jeffries style, he has spent the week gathering input from across the caucus so he could accurately reflect the mood in calls with White House Chief of Staff Jeff Zients and other officials.

Despite the chaos, Jeffries has largely been able to keep members united and optimistic about their chances of winning back the House majority. Democrats need to clinch four seats to do so, and members acknowledge that Jeffries is eager to become speaker.

Jeffriess listening style and frequent communication with members is what many believe has led colleagues to be deferential to his guidance. In a Tuesday evening call with the most vulnerable Democrats up for reelection known as the frontliners Jeffries heard from frustrated members who raised their concerns over Biden and his ability to stay in the race.

One member who spoke with Jeffries on Wednesday noted that while many Democrats are circulating letters or discussing going public, they did not want to get ahead of their leaders public statements and feel confident he shares the concerns we all have.

Beyond expressing caution, members say that Jeffries has not been explicit in either defending or championing Biden.

I didnt get any indication that he was someone who was trying to silence anyone, Golden said, who was one of the first Democrats to hear from Jeffries behind closed doors after the debate Friday and has not heard from anyone in leadership since declaring Biden would lose to Trump in an op-ed.

Jeffries hasnt disagreed with members that Vice President Harris would be the best option to lead the ticket if Biden chooses to step aside, said two people familiar with this thinking who spoke on the condition of anonymity to detail private conversations. But he is not openly contemplating that scenario.

In the days after the debate, Jeffries in public remarks acknowledged the reality of Bidens disappointing debate performance. But he did not break with the president.

At a New York fundraiser that raised $3 million for House Democrats, Jeffries asked former president Barack Obama how voters should view Bidens performance which he called a setback making way for an opportunity for a comeback. Obama replied that politics was a team sport and that winning back the House majority should be sufficient motivation for donors to support the Democratic ticket.

During a speech in Hartford, Conn., over the weekend before roughly 1,000 attendees, Jeffries reiterated his position, adding that Trump was an existential threat to democracy. He praised Biden for being a good man, a family man, an honorable man who is up against a con man.

The Democratic Party stands on the side of freedom, Jeffries said in a keynote speech. The Democratic Party will always stand on the side of truth, which is why its an all-hands-on-deck moment to win in November. Because the stakes are too high for us to do anything, other than pour our heart and our soul into victory on Nov. 5, all across the board.

Democratic strategists working to flip the House have advised candidates to continue talking about the issues and counseled them to navigate the Biden situation however they think is necessary in their district.

Rep. Nanette Barragn (D-Calif.) praised Jeffriess leadership style in an interview, calling him a listener who governs with a sense of keeping us all united and to do it very calmly. She added that he was among the best messengers in the Democratic caucus.

But another Democratic lawmaker groused that there was a lack of effort to gather House Democrats as panic-stricken members privately express grave concerns about Bidens ability to stay the course.

We havent had a single caucus meeting or call since the debate, the lawmaker said.

Its for that reason many Democrats know next weeks caucus meeting Tuesday morning will be a momentous test of Jeffriess ability to wrangle emotional lawmakers privately airing their opinions together for the first time.

Some House Democrats are upset with the Biden campaigns argument that they should back the president because the elections stakes are so high, considering that argument condescending. Many lived through the Trump administration and understand the stakes after surviving the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection in the Capitol while Biden and his top officials were not in office. The Supreme Courts decision to grant immunity to a presidents official acts has further reinforced fear of Trump winning the election.

One Democratic frontliner who spoke with the Biden campaign over the weekend said they were shocked to hear officials still defending Bidens performance as a bad night and insisting the president is ready to serve. This frontliner complained that campaign aides failed to provide a clear road map demonstrating how the president would show Americans he is capable of the job. Another frontliner said that campaign officials reached out on Friday, largely to ensure they wouldnt speak out against the president, which they did not find reassuring.

What uniformly had irked Democrats was Bidens lack of communication with Jeffries. That all changed Wednesday evening but a handful of Democrats considered it too little too late.

Its untenable for him to be the nominee if half of his own party in Congress is saying he should go, a senior congressional aide said.

Josh Dawsey and Liz Goodwin contributed to this report.

Original post:
Jeffries seeks to stem House defections, for now, as Democrats panic over Biden - The Washington Post

Democratic leaders in the House and Senate refrained on Wednesday from urging their members to rally around President Biden and were instead listening to a barrage of complaints streaming in from both the partys centrist wing and its progressives.

The private message from congressional leaders was that members should feel free to take whatever position about Mr. Bidens candidacy was best for their districts, according to several people involved in the conversations who insisted on anonymity to discuss them.

For some, that meant joining the trickle of elected Democrats who have blasted the presidents performance and either called on him to withdraw or suggested he should seriously consider it.

Representative Ral M. Grijalva of Arizona became the second Democrat in Congress to urge Mr. Biden to leave the race, following Representative Lloyd Doggett of Texas, who made his call on Tuesday.

If hes the candidate, Im going to support him, but I think that this is an opportunity to look elsewhere, Mr. Grijalva said in an interview. Referring to the president, Mr. Grijalva added: What he needs to do is shoulder the responsibility for keeping that seat and part of that responsibility is to get out of this race.

Other Democrats were not ready to go that far, but hinted they were gravely concerned about Mr. Bidens ability to serve and win re-election.

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Democrats in Congress Weigh Whether to Stick With Biden - The New York Times